


Priceless Last Minutes

by problematic_pleasures



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Sickness, bittersweet fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 05:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13563606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/problematic_pleasures/pseuds/problematic_pleasures
Summary: “S’alright.” Negan insists. “We don’t have to do this tonight.”Carl shakes his head furiously. “No, we have to.”Negan doesn’t argue.





	Priceless Last Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> more ANGST. bc i can. and also i wanted to get something posted and this was mostly finished in my drafts. this was sort of for rainyhart on tumblr who made me my great bisexual cegan icon, and i know she likes sad things. (also, if it wasn't clear, this is meant to be carl dying from the bite, hence the 'mostly canon compliant' tag)
> 
> anywho, hope you all enjoy!

“It’s your turn, tonight.”

“It’s been my turn a lotta nights, kid.”

Carl glares up at his lover. “So you have more life experience than me, fuck you.” He crosses his arms over his bare chest and shivers slightly. Negan obeys the unspoken request and drags the heavy blanket over the younger man’s body. “I just… Want to hear the stories.” He shivers again but he’s as warm as he’ll get shy of tossing him into a fireplace. He refuses to dress in the evenings, even though the sex has been waning between them for a while now. Negan shuffles closer anyway, and wraps Carl in his arms.

“I know,” Negan replies softly. “What kinda story you want tonight, hm?” He kisses the top of Carl’s head and tries to ignore the way his hair is so short. They cut it off when the fever brought the kid to tears, and he was begging for any sort of relief. It’s choppy and uneven, curls jauntily around the jut of his cheeks and jaw. It had only helped a little, and now that Carl’s stuck in some sort of twisted chill, his drastically altered hair is serving as a harsh reminder more than anything.

Carl hums, yawns, and hums again. He gets tired more easily now, and more often. Where before he used to put in ten hour shifts like most other people in Alexandria or the Sanctuary, now he’s lucky if he makes it out of bed. It had declined slowly but surely. Started at ten, then eight, then six, then dropped from four to the occasional single hour in the span of two days. It was hard to watch; it still is. Negan finds, as much as he wants to look at his lover, he spends a lot of time around Carl with his eyes closed, these days.

Carl has started to doze and even though he hates it, Negan jostles him awake. “Gotta stay with me another hour, kid. Can you do that?” They both know he can’t; they both know their little story time won’t help, either. It’s something that started weeks ago: Negan and Carl, hushed and curled impossibly close to one another, had started to share stories of their lives before the outbreak. Carl went first, worked his way backwards from just before the world went to shit, as far back as he could remember. Negan started contributing when Carl froze him out one night, nothing but sighs and cold-shoulders.

Carl ran out of stories a couple days ago—right as his pallor turned a sickly blue, in fact. Since then, Negan’s been sharing everything he can think of, even the most inconsequential or less-than-flattering stories. He _does_ have more life experience than the kid, outside of walkers, at least. It’s bittersweet, but Carl seems to enjoy it, and Negan finds he can’t deny him anything. Not now.

“Sorry,” Carl murmurs. His eye is still closed but his breathing isn’t quite so rhythmic, the way it is when he sleeps. “What about…” He trails off and tilts his head from side to side. “Sorry,” he says again. “Feels like my head is full of cotton.”

“S’alright.” Negan insists. “We don’t have to do this tonight.”

Carl shakes his head furiously. “No, we have to.”

Negan doesn’t argue.

“Tell me about… your first pride parade.”

Negan opens his eyes again and looks down at Carl. “I’ve told you that one before.”

Carl shrugs. “I want to hear it again. I like that one.” He tilts his head up and Negan leans in to brush a kiss over his clammy lips. “Unless you’ve got a better one,” he challenges with a smirk. It’s tired and he still hasn’t opened his eye; Negan knows it takes too much effort to do so, Carl’s told him before.

“Nah, that one’s fine, if that’s what you want.” Negan rests his chin on the top of Carl’s head and settles in. He tells him the story again, foggy as it is; he was a punk kid barely out of high school and had drank until he was sick. It’s not his clearest memory, not even his funniest or most exciting.

He snuck away from the little shit town he was living in and drove three hours to the big city, got there halfway through the parade, and got so drunk he passed out in a bar. He woke up painted in pinks, blues, and purples, and when he came home his dad has tried to whoop his ass.

But he’d kissed people, people he’d never seen again but never dreamed of kissing in the first place. It was freeing, like he could finally breathe. Doesn’t matter that his lungs shuttered up under his dad’s steel toe boot, the next night. Negan had had a taste he wanted more.

Negan pauses to breathe and realizes Carl is asleep again, deep as he can be. He’ll wake, restless, partway through the night. He might cry, might be in pain, might not remember certain things. One night Negan woke with a blade against his neck and Carl looking crazed above him; other nights Carl cries out for his mother, for Beth, for people Negan knows are long dead. Even knowing it’s coming doesn’t make it any easier.

Despite the fact he’s already almost sweltering, swept up alongside Carl like this, Negan settles in. He tightens his grip around the kid wrapped up in too many fuckin’ blankets and buries his face against sweat-tacky short curls. He holds on tight, and listens to Carl’s rattling breathing, because he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll get to hear it. There’s something in the wet, wretched inhales, the ones which sound so pained, that Negan knows it’s only a matter of time.

He’s not sleeping tonight, he already knows. He stays awake and holds Carl and waits—for the kid to wake up in a fit or for him to pass, either way.

Negan sighs and closes his eyes.


End file.
